Album Review: Lovers

A Friend in the World (Badman)

By the time Portland discovered
Lovers, singer-songwriter Carolyn Berk had already begun shedding the
“female Conor Oberst” tag that dogged her early days as a teenage folkie
in Athens, Ga., transposing her densely poetic, wounded-heart lyrics to
catchy electro-pop anthems that registered within the LGBT community
and beyond. A Friend in the World, Lovers’ seventh album and
their second with instrumentalists Emily Kingan and Kerby Ferris, isn’t
precisely a return to Berk’s roots, but it’s easy to imagine these songs
being performed at an open mic, stripped of their synthetic
embellishments. Not that there’s much to begin with: Tracks like “Tiger
Square” and “Girl in the Grass” are built on simple chord progressions,
lilting melodies and pitter-pat percussion, and garnished with sonic
ephemera like the xx playing in a feminist bookstore. Berk remains a
compelling lyricist—delivered in her pleading, midnight-confessional
hush, even “guh?” lines like “the goose with the truth is loose” cut
deep—but after introducing a richer palette on previous albums I Am the West and Darklight, the unwavering minimalism here feels like a slight step backward.